Introducing contemporary music

[mikey6]

I was playing through some Schnittke the other day and once the clusters started, one of my friends remarked it could have been written by a child!
I had to try to think how to explain it but couldn't.  I can explain that the clusters are thematic, most are made out of the position your hand naturally falls onto the keyboard (I think that makes sense), the 12-tone system - but any amateur composer can do that.
Any comments/thoughts?

[pies]

Schnittke's dead so technically he isn't contemporary  
I think you have to slowly ease into contemporary stuff.  Vine and Rzewski seem like a good starting point.

[indutrial]

Having dealt with more than a few music friends who are quick to talk trash about modern music, dodecaphonic writing, new complexity, free improvisation, etc..., I tend to not even bother trying to be the enlightener in the exchange, since that almost always makes me feel like I'm coming across as pompous (though that's the furthest thing from the truth). It's an annoying reality, but that's just the nature of dealing with people who feel the need to stratify everything in such ways.

Short answer...f**k 'em, just play what you like (or what you're curious about) and keep a positive and open-ended outlook.

[thalbergmad]

I had to try to think how to explain it but couldn't. 

I think Indutrial has the best answer. It is impossible to explain to someone like me about clusters.

If you like it, play it, and bollox to anyone that don't like it.

Thal

[communist]

Just curious, but what by Schnittke did you play him?


I played his 3rd sonata back in my groovy days.

[ahinton]

I think Indutrial has the best answer. It is impossible to explain to someone like me about clusters.

Why? You know what they are, surely?

Best,

Alistair

[thalbergmad]

I know what they are, but you would have a tough time in convincing me they could not be created by a 5 year old with a temper tantrum.

Thal

[retrouvailles]

I know what they are, but you would have a tought time in convincing me they could not be created by a 5 year old with a temper tantrum.

Thal

I don't think you seems to notice that not all clusters are used in such a fashion. Some clusters can be used in such a fashion that you won't even notice them, perhaps even in a pleasant melodious fashion. Heck, even Mozart and Bach used clusters from time to time.

[lontano]

I know what they are, but you would have a tought time in convincing me they could not be created by a 5 year old with a temper tantrum.

Thal

There was a time when I taught piano to  (mostly) young beginners. I had the various beginning books for them to work with, but I also found a set of instruction books called "The Little Avant Garde" which was aimed at getting those temperamental tykes to associate their impulsive banging with the way they're represented on the page. Over 3 or 4 volumes the initial score-associated banging moved into other techniques (glissandi, trills, head-banging, screaming, lighting the keyboard on fire, etc) and finally bring them around to incorporate "real music" into their little minds, now tired of all the experimental noise-making they were well equipped with. Unfortunately most of the children ended up in prison or custodial psychiatric facilities, but I thought it was an interesting approach to introduce piano music to the as yet unformed mind.

Lontano

[thalbergmad]

Bach used clusters from time to time.

Was that in his toccata for prepared harpsichord?

Thal

[thalbergmad]

"The Little Avant Garde"

Sounds compelling reading.

I will see if there is a copy in the prison library.

Thal

[retrouvailles]

Was that in his toccata for prepared harpsichord?

Thal

Haha, very funny. There is actually a rather obvious one in the beginning of the Grande Fantasy and Fugue in G minor for organ, where a C sharp and E flat are struck over a pedal point D.

[thalbergmad]

Is that a cluster?

I mistakingly thought clusters were lots more than that.

Mind you, i have not seen that many, but the ones in Earl Wild's Variations on a Theme of Stephen Foster are up to 11 notes.

Cannot image Bach using his forearm.

Thal

[retrouvailles]

Yup, that is a cluster. Just because the notes aren't next to each other on the keyboard doesn't mean that it isn't a cluster. And it only has to be three consecutive notes to be called a cluster. They don't all have to be 11 tones, chromatic, or require a forearm or palm to execute, also.

Oh, and the ones in the Earl Wild piece are forearm black note clusters, something which he likes to do quite often. Those are rather harmless.

Also, Bach didn't write any forearm clusters, heh. That was Henry Cowell's "invention".

[ahinton]

If the beginnings of tone clusters are to be found in the adjacent use of semitones, consider two examples by Chopin (both the same, notes-wise and in their overall harmonic context); the first is the big chord on the final page of his B minor Scherzo, where not only does he give us a dominant seventh chord of C major (therefore including the notes G and F) over an F# pedal but then frantically reiterates that chord several times as if to drive home the dissonance, fortissimo - and the second appears just before the B major central section of his Polonaise-Fantaisie, where the same chord and the same F# underpinning (albeit with D, rather than G, as the uppermost note) gives a sense of disturbance before the tonality of B major is established.

OK, so then "that chord in Liszt's Via Crucis...

Of course, the difference in all these examples is that the clustering remains within some kind of tonal harmonic framework, whereas the much more extended us of tone clusters in the 20th century more often than not have quite different contexts, yet someting almost always grows out of something else, does it not?...

Best,

Alistair

[retrouvailles]

Yeah, that is exactly where I wanted to go with my argument, Alistair. Maybe the use of tone clusters has changed over the years, but the point was that they have always been around and are going nowhere. They were just "emancipated" when Henry Cowell and Leo Ornstein came around. Then came pieces that used large amounts of them (or were composed almost entirely of them, like the latter's Danse Sauvage). People seem to have "settled down" and now use them for a wide variety of purposes, some of which are for melodic and rather pleasing purposes.

[lontano]

Yeah, that is exactly where I wanted to go with my argument, Alistair. Maybe the use of tone clusters has changed over the years, but the point was that they have always been around and are going nowhere. They were just "emancipated" when Henry Cowell and Leo Ornstein came around. Then came pieces that used large amounts of them (or were composed almost entirely of them, like the latter's Danse Sauvage). People seem to have "settled down" and now use them for a wide variety of purposes, some of which are for melodic and rather pleasing purposes.

Don't forget the American Master Charles E. Ives! There are tone clusters galore in his 1st piano sonata (and obviously in the earlier material he wrote that went into his 1st and 2nd sonatas) and I love these works. Part way through the 1st Sonata Ives has a subsection titled "In the Inn" that's full of raucous fun expressed by tone clusters! Cowell and Ornstein were (at times) more traditional in the notation (but let's not forget Cowell's failed attempt at creating an entirely new notation where the shapes of the notes, rather than the meter, dictated how long the note was to be played. I once heard a recording of a wind quintet (I believe) he wrote with these variously shaped note-heads. Needless to say, I remained unconverted.)

L.

[mikey6]

Schnittke's dead so technically he isn't contemporary  

I meant contemporary music in its (unfortunately) generally understood sense - atonal, unmelodious,  clusters etc.

Just curious, but what by Schnittke did you play him?

It was the improvisation and fugue which is actually a pretty cool piece once you get past a bit of 'noise' at the start.

Short answer...f**k 'em, just play what you like (or what you're curious about) and keep a positive and open-ended outlook.

I do play what I like - I once paired it with a Mozart sonata and people actually commented on the Schnittke saying that they liked it more than they thought they would so that was positive.

Is there anyway to explain how clusters in the 'atonal' sense cannot sound like a 2year old bashing his fists on the keyboard?  Even for my benefit, coz while I can accept the sound world, I can also see their point of view.

[pianovirus]

Is there anyway to explain how clusters in the 'atonal' sense cannot sound like a 2year old bashing his fists on the keyboard?  Even for my benefit, coz while I can accept the sound world, I can also see their point of view.

I second indutrial's reply - just do what you like and don't try to "convert" your friends if they are not willing to follow you. You can only influence people who are open-minded enough to let themselves be influenced (this, in more pathetic language is also what Schoenberg mentions in his often quoted foreword to Webern's Bagatelles op. 9).

There is no problem if clusters may sound like a two-year old bashing their fists on the keyboard to some people. Just tell them that we all enjoy marveling at what little kids do when they discover the world, so it can't be too bad!   Moreover, there is no law that something has to be complex or difficult in order to be appreciated.

Musical arguments aside (e.g. the expansions of expressive capabilities) just think from your own point of view as a performer. Using your fists, forearms etc. to produce tones can be a quite liberating experience for many people who have spent decades trying to perfect their piano tone with their fingers. Well, it's just sheer fun of using such elementary motions in playing.

[/youtube]

As an aside, technically, depending on what the composer required, cluster playing can be very difficult. For example, Cowell sometimes specifies several tones within a cluster to be held longer using the fingers afterwards (pressed down silently while the cluster is in the pedal). For this, you may not miss a single tone, otherwise it won't be heard afterwards. Just a random example, here are more: https://www.cowellpiano.com/Clusters.html

[scottmcc]

I have a certain skepticism for any "music" that requires the performer to wear padded gloves to play it--it suggests that the listener needs similar ear protection.

aaron copland wrote a delightful little book that has a chapter which talks about the problem of inacessibility in modern music, and how to introduce people stepwise to progressively more difficult-to-hear works.  the book is "what to listen for in music."  https://www.amazon.com/What-Listen-Music-Aaron-Copland/dp/0451226402/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1249218718&sr=1-1

the whole atonal banging thing really raises a comic book question for me:  if you as a pianist have the power to make absolutely beautiful sounds, why would you devote so much energy to making something so ugly?

[pianovirus]

aaron copland wrote a delightful little book that has a chapter which talks about the problem of inacessibility in modern music, and how to introduce people stepwise to progressively more difficult-to-hear works.  the book is "what to listen for in music."  https://www.amazon.com/What-Listen-Music-Aaron-Copland/dp/0451226402/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1249218718&sr=1-1

I second that recommendation. There is another good book (also aimed at general audiences) specifically about appreciating modern music, which unfortunately (I think) is only available in German: Keine Angst vor neuen Tönen.

the whole atonal banging thing really raises a comic book question for me:  if you as a pianist have the power to make absolutely beautiful sounds, why would you devote so much energy to making something so ugly?

In my personal opinion, "beautiful vs. ugly" are not the only sound parameters of interest (and even they are also highly subjective of course). I think of composition as a huge laboratory in which you can mix all kinds of potions - it doesn't have to taste sweet to be interesting.

[thalbergmad]

if you as a pianist have the power to make absolutely beautiful sounds, why would you devote so much energy to making something so ugly?

I sometimes wonder if some pianists that specialise in atonal banging pieces, do so because they are incapable of beautiful sounds and would be exposed as second rate hacks if they were called upon to play a Chopin Nocturne.

Thal

[ahinton]

if you as a pianist have the power to make absolutely beautiful sounds, why would you devote so much energy to making something so ugly?

Should pianists therefore eschew such works as Chopin's B minor Scherzo (which contains the example I mentioned earlier), or Alkan's Allegro Barbaro, or any other piece of, say, 19th century piano music with dissonant and/or violent content? Look, for example, at the passage (can't quote it as I have no means to scan and post, but some readers will know the bit I mean) in the finale of Alkan's solo concerto that obsesses over a minor second at an increasing dynamic level until it's almost all over the instrument - or at the menacing passage that opens the second movement of the same composer's Grand Duo for violin and piano. There are nevertheless immense beauties in all of these works. What's the matter with you? Do you want to constrict the expressive capabilities of piano composers, pianos and pianists?

Best,

Alistair

[retrouvailles]

Do you want to constrict the expressive capabilities of piano composers, pianos and pianists?

It seems that that's what all exclusively common practice-loving musicians want to do, just because they have no understanding of music that was actually written within 100 years of today, namely our friends scottmcc and Thal. If only they would do a little research on what they were listening to and/or listen intently and with an open mind, they would like some music that isn't common practice (granted, not all of it is good, but that is just like any other period of music).

[gep]

I'm looking at the score of a piano sonata. At bar 11 of the 1st movement there is in the left hand the following chord: Ab-G (a minor second), next bar there is G-F#, a major octave (with an F and an Ab in the right hand, so we have F, F#, G and Ab spread over 3 octaves), next bar: Ab-G (a minor second again), a bar furtheron there is F#-G (major octave again, with an F and an Ab again in the right hand).

Isn't that ugly!

Pianists should know better than play music with such ugly chords in it, no?

Still, I like Beethoven's 32nd Sonata....

[communist]

I have a certain skepticism for any "music" that requires the performer to wear padded gloves to play it--it suggests that the listener needs similar ear protection.

aaron copland wrote a delightful little book that has a chapter which talks about the problem of inacessibility in modern music, and how to introduce people stepwise to progressively more difficult-to-hear works.  the book is "what to listen for in music."  https://www.amazon.com/What-Listen-Music-Aaron-Copland/dp/0451226402/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1249218718&sr=1-1

the whole atonal banging thing really raises a comic book question for me:  if you as a pianist have the power to make absolutely beautiful sounds, why would you devote so much energy to making something so ugly?

beauty is a matter of perception. And does it have to have a cheesy Romantic-era melody to be beautiful?

[thalbergmad]

Pianists should know better than play music with such ugly chords in it, no?

Still, I like Beethoven's 32nd Sonata....

Me too, but the piece is hardly littered with them.

Perhaps Beethoven should have added in some forearm clusters and attached paper clips to the strings to make this sonata even more beautiful.

Thal

[thalbergmad]

It seems that that's what all exclusively common practice-loving musicians want to do, just because they have no understanding of music that was actually written within 100 years of today, namely our friends scottmcc and Thal. If only they would do a little research on what they were listening to and/or listen intently and with an open mind, they would like some music that isn't common practice (granted, not all of it is good, but that is just like any other period of music).

It is not a matter of understanding or research. If don't like a piece of music, then i don't like it.

I hardly think i have no understanding of music written in the last hundred years. That is just bollocks.

Thal

[scottmcc]

commence the standard argument from the modernists, "you don't like modern music because you don't understand it/you aren't smart enough to get it/you haven't tried hard enough/you don't have an open mind/blah blah blah."

I want to expand my horizons and listen to new music and all of that, but then every time someone presents some supposed great example of something new and different, it almost instantly induces a headache.  seriously, I thought that henry cowell piece cited earlier was a sick joke, but apparently I was wrong, as nobody in the audience seemed to laugh.

I won't pretend to only like sappy, schmalzy melodies.  I think that properly used dissonance is essential for creating dramatic tension in a work.  but when a work is nothing but crashes and bangs, I really wonder why someone would pay money for that, or devote hours of their life to learning how to play it. 

so...if the modernists have some examples that are less noxious, I'd be glad to listen.

[ahinton]

commence the standard argument from the modernists, "you don't like modern music because you don't understand it/you aren't smart enough to get it/you haven't tried hard enough/you don't have an open mind/blah blah blah."

But who cares about "modernists"? I may be a composer writing now but that does not make me a "modernist". It is the last of your citations that is the most significant - that about openness of mind.

I want to expand my horizons and listen to new music and all of that, but then every time someone presents some supposed great example of something new and different, it almost instantly induces a headache.  seriously, I thought that henry cowell piece cited earlier was a sick joke, but apparently I was wrong, as nobody in the audience seemed to laugh.

"Every time someone presented", you wrote; does this mean that each time you've listened to a piece of challenging music that you ended up disliking, you had been coerced into doing so by someone else rather than just approaching it of your own volition? Maybe this is part of your problem. I don't like evangelism, still less proselytising fury, in music any more than I do in religion.

I won't pretend to only like sappy, schmalzy melodies.  I think that properly used dissonance is essential for creating dramatic tension in a work.  but when a work is nothing but crashes and bangs, I really wonder why someone would pay money for that, or devote hours of their life to learning how to play it. 

Do remember the kinds of reaction that works of Beethoven, Chopin, Alkan, Liszt and others have elicited at or close in time to first performances of some of their works - they're not so different to you "nothing but crashes and bangs" one; you should read some of the contemporary critical accounts of Chopin's E minor Piano Concerto as instances of this kind of thing. And can you just imagine how some Victorian English people (not least Queen Victoria herself) would likely have first reacted to the F minor quartet of the Mendelssohn whom they had taken so warmly to their hearts?

Best,

Alistair

[thalbergmad]

Maybe this is part of your problem.

scottmcc, nor anyone else, do not have to have a problem in order to dislike certain types of music.

Your must learn to accept this.

Thal

[retrouvailles]

Oh you guys, I just made that comment about "not understanding modern music" to piss you off. Don't take me seriously. That's just me showing my frustration. But seriously, give the last 100 years of music a chance. If we can like it, so can you.

[thalbergmad]

give the last 100 years of music a chance.

I have on numerous occasions and continue to do so, but it appears that anyone that does not, has some kind of problem according to our resident windbag.

Thal

[ahinton]

scottmcc, nor anyone else, do not have to have a problem in order to dislike certain types of music.

Your must learn to accept this.

No, on the contrary, mine (well, you did write "your") "must" - and indeed need to - do no such thing, since the particular "problem" to which I referred was not that which your appear to try to you identify here but the quite different one that scottmcc himself cited; as others have told you here on several previous occasions, "disliking" certain music is not at all the same thing as (to use scottmcc's words) declaring that "when a work is nothing but crashes and bangs, I really wonder why someone would pay money for that, or devote hours of their life to learning how to play it" - in other words, scottmcc is talking here first about his own personal perceptions of what appears to constitute "nothing but crashes and bangs" before revealing his evident inability and/or unwillingness to understand why people pay money for, and/or devote hours of their lives learning to play, music that he happens for the time being to dislike.

You must learn to accept this difference.

Best,

Alistair

[ahinton]

I have on numerous occasions and continue to do so, but it appears that anyone that does not, has some kind of problem according to our resident windbag.

I have no idea to whom you refer here, but it is surely true that anyone who pronounces an opinion on something of which he/she has insufficient experience to enable such an opinion to be worth much is merely exposing their vulnerability to unwarranted prejudice; that, however, is, as I pointed out in my previous post, not the principal point at issue here, for what people "dislike" is one thing but the ways in which they sometimes dismiss it can often amount to nothing more useful than yet more examples of personal opinion being passed off as immutable fact, for when (for example) "I don't like this piece" is expressed as "it's just full of crashes and bangs", all that the intelligent respondent can do in the face of such knee-jerk pejorative attiudinising is recognise that the person who says that they don't like something appears at the same time to be trying to rubbish it just because they happen not to like it.

Long may you try to get to grips with all manner of unfamiliar music of all eras.

Best,

Alistair

[thalbergmad]

I want to expand my horizons and listen to new music and all of that, but then every time someone presents some supposed great example of something new and different, it almost instantly induces a headache. 

Hinty,

This is what he wrote.

HE DOES NOT LIKE IT

Not a problem, not a disease.

Accept it.

[thalbergmad]

I have no idea to whom you refer here, but it is surely true that anyone who pronounces an opinion on something of which he/she has insufficient experience to enable such an opinion to be worth much is merely exposing their vulnerability to unwarranted prejudice;

If you listen to a piece and it does not appeal to you, then you have sufficient experience to formulate a personal opinion without having to listen to everything that has been written in the last 100 years.

[ahinton]

Hinty,

This is what he wrote.

HE DOES NOT LIKE IT

Not a problem, not a disease.

Accept it.

I accept only what scottmcc wrote, from which you quoted selectively in what I can only presume to be a feeble attempt to suit your apparent purpose; the passage that I quoted from him (to which I responded in my earlier post) was, for the record, as follows:

when a work is nothing but crashes and bangs, I really wonder why someone would pay money for that, or devote hours of their life to learning how to play it.

Now whether or not you might agree in principle with this phrase, this is nevertheless precisely what he wrote and it is that to which I responded.

Accept it; you may need first to look it up first to satisfy yourself that I am not making up what he wrote but, unless the two of you are in cahoots over it and scottmcc decides to withdraw that part of what he wrote, the case is clearly closed.

Best,

Alistair

[ahinton]

If you listen to a piece and it does not appeal to you, then you have sufficient experience to formulate a personal opinion without having to listen to everything that has been written in the last 100 years.

That is of course perfectly true (except to the extent that "the last 100 years" is neither here nor there, as your argument could have been equally valid had you written "the last 400 years"); what appeals to anyone is, as I must be getting almost as tired of writing as you are to reading it, not the same as the kinds of remarks that scottmcc and others are wont on occasion to make that go well beyond the bounds of expressing mere personal dislike. In any case, what would you say about such a listener's dislike were it to turn into a better appreciation and greater appeal after a time? - it can and does happen, you know!

Best,

Alistair

[thalbergmad]

I accept only what scottmcc wrote, from which you quoted selectively in what I can only presume to be a feeble attempt to suit your apparent purpose;

At last, there is some light at the end of the tunnel.

[thalbergmad]

Long may you try to get to grips with all manner of unfamiliar music of all eras.

I do not try to "get to grips" with anything and my listening includes music from all eras.

I do not like all of it.

Simple, glad you eventually understand.

Thal

[ahinton]

At last, there is some light at the end of the tunnel.

Is there? Well, that's good then, for maybe it might illuminate that tunnel vision which still somehow contrives to discourage you from responding the the rest of what I wrote in that post!

Best,

Alistair

[ahinton]

I do not try to "get to grips" with anything and my listening includes music from all eras.

I do not like all of it.

Simple, glad you eventually understand.

I have always understood that, so there's no "eventually" about it; that said, you and others have often gone far farther than merely telling people that you "do not like" certain music and it is that aspect of your expressions various about which I have been writing.

Best,

Alistair

[thalbergmad]

what appeals to anyone is, as I must be getting almost as tired of writing as you are to reading it, not the same as the kinds of remarks that scottmcc and others are wont on occasion to make that go well beyond the bounds of expressing mere personal dislike.

This is true, but it is always going to happen. This is a forum with thousands of members from all age groups and various levels of experience.

I have said some daft things in the past, but it sometimes feels on this forum that there is an effort to intellectualise 20th century music and make it only suitable for some kind of elite listener, and this puts me off.

Thal

[thalbergmad]

Is there? Well, that's good then, for maybe it might illuminate that tunnel vision which still somehow contrives to discourage you from responding the the rest of what I wrote in that post!

Congratulations, you almost managed to quote his post in full.

Is that sufficient??

Thal

[thalbergmad]

I have always understood that, so there's no "eventually" about it; that said, you and others have often gone far farther than merely telling people that you "do not like" certain music and it is that aspect of your expressions various about which I have been writing.

I have gone further, but i am only expressing my own opinion.

It would be impossible for me to express the opinion of anyone else as far as i am aware.

Thal

[ronde_des_sylphes]

it sometimes feels on this forum that there is an effort to intellectualise 20th century music and make it only suitable for some kind of elite listener

I completely agree with that, and it does so-called modernist music no favours at all.

Merely anecdotal, but I know people with a rock music/jazz background and no conventional musical training who have listened to Schnittke, Messiaen, Ligeti, etc and who have found it far more accessible than Mozart. Make of that what you will..

[thalbergmad]

I completely agree with that, and it does so-called modernist music no favours at all.

Thanks for that old chap.

I was worried that it was just me that felt that way.

Thal

[retrouvailles]

I also feel that way, but I happen to be on the supporting side of so-called "modernist music". It seems that many of those who are against it believe that it is some sort of elitist thing and have that notion in the back of their mind while evaluating it, which can cause a negative response. I believe that some of it does require some intellectual work on the part of the listener, but not all of it, or else hardly anyone would like it.

[thalbergmad]

It seems that many of those who are against it believe that it is some sort of elitist thing and have that notion in the back of their mind while evaluating it, which can cause a negative response.

I never used to think of it as elitist until i joined this place.

I cannot tie this feeling down to just one post. It is rather the impression gained from many.

Thal